A Date With Death: Cozy Private Investigator Series (Flora Lively Mysteries Book 2) (10 page)

‘Don’t be scared,’ he told her. ‘Whoever did this is probably long gone. But we need to question everyone just in case. And you,’ he added.

‘Me?’

‘First on the scene, weren’t you?’

‘Second. A close second.’

‘Come straight back up here. I’ll let you in when I’m ready for you.’

Flora watched for a moment while Jack’s team surged into action. There were eight or nine of them, or maybe ten or more, some carrying black boxes, some dressed in white cover-ups like decorators. One had a camera and a light on a stand, and she thought how similar the equipment was to that on a film set. A totally different kind of drama. She heard Jack shouting orders, heard Raquel start up her crying again, then the door closed and a uniformed policewoman positioned herself in front of it, gazing implacably at Flora.

After giving a white-faced Sidney Jack’s instructions, Flora went to look for Marshall. She took a torch from the boot room, and told herself the whole way across the lawn that she was perfectly safe, that she couldn’t be safer than she was right now in a house – or even outside a house – full of police officers. Even so, when she reached the yurt, she threw herself inside with relief.

‘Haven’t you missed all the fun,’ she said, surprised to find her voice still shaky, her eyes welling up with tears.

There was no answer.

‘Marshall?’ Flora turned in a circle. Not here, she thought. But where was he? ‘Marshall?’ she said again. There was nowhere he could hide in this place. She went back outside and checked the toilet and shower block. Then she came back and looked at her phone. No messages. She looked for a note, then she looked through his clothes, a random and panicky hunch telling her he might have packed up in a huff and gone home.

His clothes, along with his sports bag and wash kit, were right there by his bed. Well, that was something. He must be back at the house, probably having a drink in the lounge with Vincenzo and the others. Probably waiting for her, waiting to hear all about it.

She sat for a moment, her fingers stroking the sheepskin rug, digging deep into the fleece. She thought about Alberto’s face, about his eyes. She thought about the photos on Eduardo’s phone, and pictured Gabriella slapping the amorous director, being forced into an unwanted kiss. Hanging around outside his door. Why had she been there? She shivered and pulled a brown checked blanket over her shoulders.

Alberto was dead, stabbed right down the hall from Celeste’s room. Maybe stabbed right down the hall while they chatted and talked and looked at photos of him. She still had no idea what Celeste and Eduardo had planned to do with the photos. Had Celeste gone to see Alberto after she left Flora? But no, that couldn’t be right. She’d arrived after Raquel and Flora had found his body. And she’d said she was going to find Eduardo. But she might have passed the killer on the stairs. Flora shuddered to think of it.

Stabbed right down the hall, possibly by someone they knew. Jack had been quite clear on that point – there might be a murderer amongst them. And here Flora was, in a yurt, in the woods, alone.

She shuddered again, then got up, keeping the blanket wrapped around her like a cape. Her phone beeped, a text message, and she grabbed it with her free hand. It would be Marshall, wondering where she was.

It was Jack.
Ready for you now. Bring your friend.

Flora put down her phone and looked around again. She could feel something churning deep in her stomach, not quite sickness, but not far off. A sense of foreboding, of something bad on the horizon. It was crazy – she knew it was crazy. Still, she couldn’t shake it off.

If only she knew where Marshall was.

***

‘Where’s your friend?’

Jack was standing by a pair of small sofas. Alberto’s body had been removed, Flora noticed with relief, and the door to the bedroom was open. There was no sign of Raquel or Celeste. Flora sat on one of the sofas, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders. It carried the scent of the yurt – wood and old rugs and something musty. Flora hadn’t come on her own – a uniformed officer had been sent to the Nook to escort her back. For her own safety, Jack said, but Flora wasn’t so sure. She figured Jack was concerned that she was about to crack up. She was kind of worried about that herself.

There was a pot of tea on a marble table by her knees, and now Jack came and poured her a cup. He sat opposite her, his fists clenched on top of his thighs.

‘Alberto’s murder wasn’t the only crime committed here tonight,’ he said, his voice low. ‘The Infanta Tiara has gone missing.’

‘They kept it in here?’ Flora pulled a face. ‘Not very safe.’

Jack reddened slightly, and Flora remembered that he’d been brought in in the first place to advise on the safety of the diamond tiara. It wouldn’t look good, she imagined, that it had been stolen practically from under his nose.

‘Did you see him?’ Jack said, leaning forward. ‘Did you see Marshall back at your yurt?’

She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen him all evening. Well, since earlier, you know. In the gardens. Why do you want to talk to him so badly? He wasn’t with me when we found … the body.’

‘Sure. Okay.’ Jack nodded, then he stood and went to the door. He spoke to someone outside, then closed the door and came back. He reached into a large black case by his feet and pulled out a clear plastic bag. Inside was something blue and white and red. A baseball cap. Flora stared, then rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

‘We found this,’ Jack said. ‘We found it underneath Alberto’s body.’

A breath caught in her throat. ‘That was found in here?’ she said. ‘But what was Alberto doing with Marshall’s cap?’

‘So you can confirm that this belongs to Marshall Goodman?’

Flora frowned. Jack’s tone was suddenly official; it threw her off her stride.

‘Well, he owns one just like it, so yes. I guess so.’ And then she got it. It was in Jack’s eyes, and in the way he held himself on the small cream sofa, his neck erect, almost wary.

‘Oh, what? You think Marshall had something to do with this? Marshall?’ She laughed, and shook her head. ‘Boy, are you barking up the wrong tree.’

Jack shrugged. ‘This piece of evidence places him directly at the scene. You haven’t seen him all evening, and now he’s gone missing. Admit it – he couldn’t stand Alberto, and he was angry with him for giving you that part. Giving you that costume to wear.’

‘Nothing gets past you, does it?’ Flora got up, still gripping the blanket with both hands. ‘Come on, Jack. The people who hated Alberto are practically lining up outside the door. Nick Gibson, Eduardo …’

‘Celeste?’

Flora met his gaze. ‘Celeste was with me in her room.’

‘Right up until you came in here with Raquel?’

‘No. She went after Eduardo, but she was only gone ten minutes. If that.’

‘Sticking a sword into someone doesn’t take very long. Not if you have the element of surprise.’

Flora shivered. ‘Do you mind if we close the window?’ The door to the balcony was still wide open. Outside, an owl hooted, or two owls, hooting secret messages to each other.

‘I’d rather you didn’t. It’s best to leave the crime scene exactly as we found it. The SOCOs haven’t finished yet.’

‘Fine. If you say so.’ Flora looked around, alert now, the hairs on her arms raised. The crime scene. A crime scene where Marshall’s cap had been found. There was something different here, she realised with a start. Different to how it had looked earlier. What was it? She pointed to an antique bureau with a marquetry-panelled top. The flip-down desk was open now, and a small drawer from the centre had been pulled out. ‘Did you open that?’ she asked.

‘Of course not.’ Jack got to his feet and crossed the room to stand next to Flora. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure. Was this where they kept the tiara?’

Jack nodded. ‘Why?’ he said again.

Flora said nothing. Pretty stupid place to keep something so valuable, she thought. She walked over to the counter. It was set up as a kind of bar, but without optics or anything like that. The two glasses and the half-empty bottle of whisky had gone. Her eyes travelled around the room. She noticed that an occasional table with a round top had been turned over on its side, and also that a large gilt-framed painting on the wall by the bar was tilted, as though knocked into during a struggle. She frowned. Was it possible she’d missed all of this earlier?

It was possible, but she was sure she hadn’t.

This wasn’t how the room had looked when she came in after Raquel, Flora was certain. Which meant that someone had messed things up a bit. But why? Perhaps it was the same person who had broken into the bureau and taken the tiara. Could it have been Gabriella – was that why she was hanging around outside?

‘Flora.’ Jack’s voice was quieter now, and he led her back to the sofa, rearranging the soft blanket around her shoulders. ‘I know you’re exhausted, that this has been a horrible shock, but I need to ask you a few more questions. Is that okay?’

She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

‘Did you touch anything when you came in here earlier?’

Flora shook her head. Jack made a note in his pad. He looked up at her, his eyes searching.

‘Did you see Mrs Caro – Raquel – or Celeste touch anything?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see anyone touch anything.’ She kept the emphasis on “see”. She wasn’t actually lying. It was up to him to ask the right questions, was all. She would tell him, of course she would. Just as soon as she’d had a chance to think about it some more. To make absolutely sure she was right about what she had and hadn’t seen.

‘Will you describe everything that happened,’ Jack said, ‘in your own words, from when you left me in the gardens earlier, until right now?’

She did, leaving out only the detail of the photographs Eduardo had taken, but mentioning that there were some photos on the actor’s phone that Jack might want to take a look at.

‘So you were alone in Celeste’s room, just down the hall from here, for ten minutes or more?’

‘Well, I didn’t do it!’ Flora said, glaring. ‘What is this? Accuse as many people as possible, hope someone confesses? Is that how the police work these days?’

‘Take it easy, Flora. I’m just asking questions. No one is accusing you of anything. I wondered if you had heard anything, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ She slumped back, mollified. ‘Well, don’t go jumping to any conclusions, okay? Baseball cap or not, I know Marshall better than anyone. He’s probably just gone off in a huff. I’m sure he’ll be back at the yurt by now, wondering where I’ve got to.’

‘We have a man there, waiting,’ Jack said absently, only half his attention on Flora. A uniformed officer had just entered the room; he bent and said something to Jack. Flora didn’t catch a word of it.

‘Okay.’ Jack stood, and held out his hand to help Flora up. ‘There are refreshments in the dining hall, and I want everyone there for now until we’ve finished up here. I’ll come and find you if I have any more questions.’

But Flora was staring at the spot on the floor where Alberto had been. The outline was crudely marked with white tape, the carpet stained a brownish red. The position marked with the tape was pretty much how she remembered it.

Which was one thing, at least.

‘This might have happened while I was just sitting there, practically next door,’ she said, half to herself.

Jack made a sympathetic face. ‘Don’t think like that, Flora. The medical examiner will pinpoint the time of death, but whenever it happened, and whoever did it, I’m pretty sure you weren’t in any danger. This is most likely a straightforward break-in –’ he gestured towards the open balcony door ‘– but we have to make sure. And until we do know for sure, everyone here is a potential suspect. And that includes both of your friends.’

‘And me?’ she said, expecting him to laugh and shake his head at the ridiculousness of her suggestion. But Jack didn’t laugh. His expression was blank, distant, his gaze trained on the upturned table. The uniformed officer by his side coughed loudly. Jack looked at him, then got to his feet, pulling down his jacket sleeves like a gentleman getting dressed for dinner.

‘Like I said, Flora. Everyone is a potential suspect.’

Chapter 7

Mornings at Hanley Manor were birdsong and distant cockerels and sunlight thrown through the gaps in the yurt’s wood and fabric structure, picking out dust motes, while Flora rubbed her eyes and Marshall snored. He snored. She hadn’t told him yet, had filed it away for future ribbing. It was a delicious nugget of information she held to her chest, ready to be yanked out and thrown at him the next time he tried to undermine her authority.

Their first morning had been viewed through the mist of a hangover; their second was borne under the crushing weight of a murder. Marshall hadn’t been waiting for Flora when she finally got back to the Nook, but when he did return she discovered he’d already been collared by the police in the house, and had been questioned by Jack for over an hour. Last night he’d refused to talk, slumping onto his bed with his back to her. Still mad at her, or perhaps just exhausted. She’d let him sleep, but sleep had been hard for her to find.

She crept out of bed now, and sat on the edge of Marshall’s. She touched his shoulder, then pressed more firmly.

‘Marshall, we need to talk.’

‘Mm–m. Sure thing. Later.’

‘No. Now. I need to know where you were last night. Where did you go after you stormed off the set?’

He rolled onto his back. His hair was mussed and his eyes blurry, but his mouth held its usual half-smile.

‘
Et tu
, Brutus?’

‘What?’

‘For the record, I didn’t storm, I walked. What, so you think I did it, as well? Ran your precious Alberto through with a sword?’

‘Of course not!’

‘That’s what your friend thinks. Detective Jack.’ He said the name with a sneer.

Flora shook her head impatiently. ‘He doesn’t think that, and neither do I. I just want to know where you were. Why are you being so mysterious about it?’

Marshall shrugged. She waited. When it was obvious there was no more coming, she stood and glared down at him, her hands on her hips.